Saturday, May 30, 2009

This worries me. I don't think it's a coincidence that it's only a month or two after Obama told the world in the Czech Republic that he wants to disarm the United States of all nuclear weapons, and recently put a known very left-wing peacenik and Russian apologist (Rose Gottemoeller, see previous post) in charge of arms treaties.

It's not a near-term threat, but if this country gives up all its nuclear arms, this world is headed for a disaster of Armageddon-like proportions. Give it 10 or 20 years. China won't give up theirs, for instance, and their ambitions go far beyond China.

GENEVA (AP) -- The 65-nation Conference on Disarmament broke a dozen years of deadlock Friday and opened the way to negotiate a new nuclear arms control treaty.

Diplomats welcomed the adoption of a ''program of work'' as a breakthrough for the conference, which has been stalemated since it wrote the nuclear test ban treaty in 1996.

The program refers to nuclear disarmament in general, but it indicates a top candidate for a new treaty is one to ban production of so-called ''fissile materials'' -- highly enriched uranium and plutonium -- needed to create atomic weapons.

Ambassador Idriss Jazairy of Algeria, who as chairman of the conference pushed for adoption of the program, said the breakthrough came in part because of support by the United States, Russia, Britain, France and China.

''Terrific result,'' British Ambassador John Duncan wrote in a tweet on the Twitter micro-blogging site. He credited Jazairy with ''getting international work on nuclear disarmament restarted in Geneva.''

Even North Korea, which only this week tested its second nuclear bomb, endorsed the program of work.

An Myong Hun, a diplomat with the North Korean delegation, told the conference, ''The Democratic People's Republic of Korea has decided to support the draft decision in order for the conference to be able to start its substantive work.''

This decision was taken even though the U.N. Security Council continues to criticize North Korea, An said, adding that moves to acquire a nuclear arsenal were solely for self-defense.

He said it remains the country's policy to achieve total nuclear disarmament, but nuclear weapons states have to lead the way.

Iran, which has been accused of trying to develop nuclear weapons, said it had sent the accord to Tehran, but had yet to receive instructions.

Garold Larson, the head of the U.S. delegation, joined in the praise for Jazairy and other mediators and said delegates were looking forward to the work, ''which will surely be challenging.''

The United States has long backed proposals for a fissile materials treaty, but was credited with helping break the logjam by shifting its position to support a verifiable accord.

President Barack Obama said in Prague, Czech Republic, last month, ''The United States will seek a new treaty that verifiably ends the production of fissile materials intended for use in state nuclear weapons.''

On Friday, Obama welcomed an agreement by the conference to open the way to negotiate a new nuclear arms control treaty.

He said the decision signals a commitment to work together on what he calls a fundamental challenge. He also said he's committed to working with other governments to help complete the treaty quickly, saying such a treaty is an essential element of his vision for a world free of nuclear weapons.

Previously the Bush administration had rejected verification, arguing that inspections and monitoring were insufficient.

Russia and China also joined in the endorsement of the program and expressed hope for substantive work to get under way.

The program also takes into account a concern of many non-nuclear nations that the negotiations should consider existing stockpiles of fissile materials.

The accord balances different interests of countries that have been deeply divided over the future path of arms negotiations since the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty was approved nearly 13 years ago. The conference in earlier years negotiated a treaty on chemical weapons.

Many non-nuclear countries have long wanted the conference to negotiate nuclear disarmament, but the United States led objections by arguing that it was unsuitable for a negotiations among many countries. It noted it already has been negotiating effectively with the Russians to reduce their stockpiles and that such talks between two powers was the best way to go.

By coincidence, the U.S. and Russia are scheduled to continue talks in Geneva next week on extending the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, or START, which expires at the end of the year.

The Conference on Disarmament also set up a working group on the ''prevention of an arms race in outer space,'' a favorite proposal of Russia and China, which have cited fears that the United States was trying to ''weaponize'' space.

Another working group will tackle a concern of non-nuclear countries, that they be given assurances by other countries of protection against the use or threat of attack with nuclear weapons.

Saturday, May 16, 2009

In response to the article copied below, I received a response from a friend sympathetic to my criticism of DARPA, who remarked that nonetheless, there are some very simple applications of EEG for medicine, in discerning the level of consciousness of a sedated patient.

I agree with what Doug says, that an electrically based estimate of consciousness or unconsciousness might be possible. And as a personal adjunct, it *might* (emphasize "might") be possible, using traditional external measures of brain wave activity, to "decode" (wrong term) EEG type signals to get very crude estimates of certain simple emotional states -- extreme anger, etc.

But speaking as a professional electrical engineer, part-time physicist and amateur neuropsychologist (an area of long-term interest and limited study though not of in-depth knowledge and experience) I will simply crudely assert with utter certainty that it is absolutely not possible, even remotely, for electrical sensors on the outside of the brain -- any number of them you choose, of any type (electrostatic, magnetic, electromagnetic) and sensitivity you can obtain -- to discern the content of conceptual thought via "brain waves" sufficiently to interpret those "waves" as language and transmit them to another person (as DARPA wants to) without the words first being spoken.

Without boring anyone with an essay, the interpretation of a state of consciousness is much more than a word or phrase measured in the moment, and the physical state pertaining to consciousness is much more than electrical emanations escaping the brain. It's much less possible to discern the content of consciousness from an array of external electrical sensors than it is to follow the total sequence of calculations in a computer with an array of electrical sensors. To be less ambiguous, the possibility in either case is simply, zero.

That DARPA doesn't realize this either means A) this is just a ruse to conceal funding of much more practical activities (a common ploy), or B) they haven't a clue. Speaking from personal experience, I strongly recommend (B). In all matters pertaining to the functioning of government, the operative principle most likely to lead one to the truth is: if it looks stupid, it probably is. In the vernacular of Forrest Gump, stupid is as stupid does.Robb

-----Original Message-----From:Doug

While telepathy is nonsense, there is one portion of the article which might touch on valid research. (I emphasize 'might'.) "The project has three major goals, according to Darpa. First, try to map a person’s EEG patterns to his or her individual words. Then, see if those patterns are generalizable — if everyone has similar patterns. Last, “construct a fieldable pre-prototype that would decode the signal and transmit over a limited range.” There is a now a monitor in the operating room which sums the electrical signals form the brain and converts that sum into an estimate of the patient's level of consciousness. Some anesthesiologists use it to monitor the level of conciousness to make sure that the patient is 'asleep'. (In my view, at the current state of the technology which does have errors in its estimates, it is no more valid than the customary approach.) But it does suggest to me that trying to find out if one can relate specific electrical signals from the brain to a specific thought might be a valid pursuit. A neurophysiologist would know better.

Pentagon Preps Soldier Telepathy Push

By Katie Drummond

May 14, 2009 |

Forget the battlefield radios, the combat PDAs or even infantry hand signals. When the soldiers of the future want to communicate, they’ll read each other’s minds.

At least, that’s the hope of researchers at the Pentagon’s mad-science division Darpa. The agency’s budget for the next fiscal year includes $4 million to start up a program called Silent Talk. The goal is to “allow user-to-user communication on the battlefield without the use of vocalized speech through analysis of neural signals.” That’s on top of the $4 million the Army handed out last year to the University of California to investigate the potential for computer-mediated telepathy.

Before being vocalized, speech exists as word-specific neural signals in the mind. Darpa wants to develop technology that would detect these signals of “pre-speech,” analyze them, and then transmit the statement to an intended interlocutor. Darpa plans to use EEG to read the brain waves. It’s a technique they’re also testing in a project to devise mind-reading binoculars that alert soldiers to threats faster the conscious mind can process them.

The project has three major goals, according to Darpa. First, try to map a person’s EEG patterns to his or her individual words. Then, see if those patterns are generalizable — if everyone has similar patterns. Last, “construct a fieldable pre-prototype that would decode the signal and transmit over a limited range.”

The military has been funding a handful of mind-tapping technology recently, and already have monkeys capable of telepathic limb control. Telepathy may also have advantages beyond covert battlefield chatter. Last year, the National Research Council and the Defense Intelligence Agency released a report suggesting that neuroscience might also be useful to “make the enemy obey our commands.” The first step, though, may be getting a grunt to obey his officer’s remotely-transmitted thoughts.

Monday, May 11, 2009

I'm not using that phrase in the usual sense, of course. I'm talking about anti-human "activists" who promote their agenda via propaganda that gets pushed through the school system to brainwash young kids about issues they have no capacity for rationally assessing. Case in point: a creature named Annie Leonard, who has created a cartoon video to "educate" kids on the environment:

“A lot of what’s in the film was already out there,” Ms. Leonard said, “but the style of the animation makes it easy to watch. It is a nice counterbalance to the starkness of the facts.”

That says it all to me. I'm reminded again of Marlo Thomas, a long forgotten actress ("That Girl") who remarked on "The Tonight Show" back in the 70's, "Don't worry about the facts. The facts will kill you every time."

They sure will. Here is how the video says that to the kids:

“We’ll start with extraction, which is a fancy word for natural resource exploitation, which is a fancy word for trashing the planet,” she says at one point. “What this looks like is we chop down the trees, we blow up mountains to get the metals inside, we use up all the water and we wipe out the animals.”

Al Gore would be proud.

Ms. Leonard put the video on the Internet in December 2007. Word quickly spread among teachers, who recommended it to one another as a brief, provocative way of drawing students into a dialogue about how buying a cellphone or jeans could contribute to environmental devastation.

As usual, worn-out cliche's of evil capitalists abound, but of course 9 year old kids wouldn't know a cliche from a climate hoax:

Mark Zuber, a parent of a child at Big Sky High School in Missoula, had a stronger reaction when a teacher showed the video to his daughter last year. “There was not one positive thing about capitalism in the whole thing,” Mr. Zuber said. Corporations, for example, are portrayed as a bloated person sporting a top hat and with a dollar sign etched on its front.

Feel free to comment on all this to evil denizens of the New York Times, who are absolutely in love with this kind of "informing". Of course, they have never been terribly wedded to the "starkness of the facts".

May 11, 2009A Cautionary Video About America’s ‘Stuff’ By LESLIE KAUFMANThe thick-lined drawings of the Earth, a factory and a house, meant to convey the cycle of human consumption, are straightforward and child-friendly. So are the pictures of dark puffs of factory smoke and an outlined skull and crossbones, representing polluting chemicals floating in the air.

Which is one reason “The Story of Stuff,” a 20-minute video about the effects of human consumption, has become a sleeper hit in classrooms across the nation.

The video is a cheerful but brutal assessment of how much Americans waste, and it has its detractors. But it has been embraced by teachers eager to supplement textbooks that lag behind scientific findings on climate change and pollution. And many children who watch it take it to heart: riding in the car one day with his parents in Tacoma, Wash., Rafael de la Torre Batker, 9, was worried about whether it would be bad for the planet if he got a new set of Legos.

“When driving by a big-box store, you could see he was struggling with it,” his father, David Batker, said. But then Rafael said, “It’s O.K. if I have Legos because I’m going to keep them for a very long time,” Mr. Batker recalled.

The video was created by Annie Leonard, a former Greenpeace employee and an independent lecturer who paints a picture of how American habits result in forests being felled, mountaintops being destroyed, water being polluted and people and animals being poisoned. Ms. Leonard, who describes herself as an “unapologetic activist,” is also critical of corporations and the federal government, which she says spends too much on the military.

Ms. Leonard put the video on the Internet in December 2007. Word quickly spread among teachers, who recommended it to one another as a brief, provocative way of drawing students into a dialogue about how buying a cellphone or jeans could contribute to environmental devastation.

So far, six million people have viewed the film at its site, storyofstuff.com, and millions more have seen it on YouTube. More than 7,000 schools, churches and others have ordered a DVD version, and hundreds of teachers have written Ms. Leonard to say they have assigned students to view it on the Web.

It has also won support from independent groups that advise teachers on curriculum choices. Facing the Future, a curriculum developer for schools in all 50 states, is drafting lesson plans based on the video. And Ms. Leonard has a contract with Simon & Schuster to write a book based on the video.

The enthusiasm is not universal. In January, a school board in Missoula County, Mont., decided that screening the video treaded on academic freedom after a parent complained that its message was anticapitalist.

But many educators say the video is a boon to teachers as they struggle to address the gap in what textbooks say about the environment and what science has revealed in recent years.

“Frankly, a lot of the textbooks are awful on the subject of the environment,” said Bill Bigelow, the curriculum editor of Rethinking Schools, a quarterly magazine that has promoted “The Story of Stuff” to its subscribers and on its Web site, which reaches about 600,000 educators a month. “The one used out here in Oregon for global studies — it’s required — has only three paragraphs on climate change. So, yes, teachers are looking for alternative resources.”

Environmental education is still a young and variable field, according to Frank Niepold, the climate education coordinator at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. There are few state or local school mandates on how to teach the subject.

The agency is seeking to change that, but in the interim many teachers are developing their own lesson plans on climate change, taking some elements from established sources like the National Wildlife Federation and others from less conventional ones like “The Story of Stuff.”

Ms. Leonard is self-educated on where waste goes and worked for Greenpeace to prevent richer nations from dumping their trash in poorer ones. She produced the video, with the Free Range Studios company, and with money from numerous nonprofit groups; the largest single giver was the Tides Foundation. She did so, she said, after tiring of traveling often to present her views at philanthropic and environmental conferences. She attributes the response to the video’s simplicity.

“A lot of what’s in the film was already out there,” Ms. Leonard said, “but the style of the animation makes it easy to watch. It is a nice counterbalance to the starkness of the facts.”

The video certainly makes the facts stark and at times very political: “We’ll start with extraction, which is a fancy word for natural resource exploitation, which is a fancy word for trashing the planet,” she says at one point. “What this looks like is we chop down the trees, we blow up mountains to get the metals inside, we use up all the water and we wipe out the animals.”

Mark Lukach, who teaches global studies at Woodside Priory, a Catholic college-preparatory school in Portola Valley, Calif., acknowledged that the film is edgy, but said the 20-minute length gives students time to challenge it in class after viewing it.

“Compared to ‘An Inconvenient Truth,’ ” he said, referring to Al Gore’s one-and-a-half-hour documentary on climate change, “it is much shorter and easier to compact into a class segment. You can watch it and then segue into a discussion.”

Mr. Lukach’s students made a response video and posted it on YouTube, asking Ms. Leonard to scare them less and give them ideas on how to make things better. That in turn inspired high school students in Mendocino, Calif., to post an answer to Woodside, with suggested activities.

Dawn Zweig, who teaches environmental studies at the Putney School, a private academy in Vermont, said that the very reason the video appealed to teachers — it shows students how their own behavior is linked to what is happening across the globe — could also raise sensitive issues. She said students, particularly affluent ones, might take the critique personally. “If you offend a student, they turn off the learning button and then you won’t get anywhere,” Ms. Zweig said.

Sometimes teachers observe the opposite: children who become environmental advocates at home after seeing the video. After Jasmine Madavi, 18, saw it last year in Mr. Lukach’s class at Woodside Priory, she began nagging her parents to stop buying bottled water. Her mother resisted, saying that filtered tap water, Jasmine’s suggested alternative, would not taste as good. But Jasmine bought the filter on her own, and the household is now converted.

“You just have to be persistent,” said Ms. Madavi, who is now a community college student. “When you use a water bottle, it just doesn’t disappear. That’s Annie’s message.”

Most parents take such needling with humor. But Mark Zuber, a parent of a child at Big Sky High School in Missoula, had a stronger reaction when a teacher showed the video to his daughter last year. “There was not one positive thing about capitalism in the whole thing,” Mr. Zuber said.

Corporations, for example, are portrayed as a bloated person sporting a top hat and with a dollar sign etched on its front.

He described the video as one-sided. “It was very well done, very effective advocacy, but it was just that,” he said.

Mr. Zuber argued before the Missoula County School Board that the way in which “The Story of Stuff” was presented, without an alternative point of view, violated its standards on bias, and the board agreed in a 4-to-3 vote.

Still, Ms. Leonard is hoping the video will circle the globe. “I’ve heard from teachers in Palestine and Papua New Guinea,” she said. “It is just spreading and spreading.”

Sunday, May 10, 2009

...but isn't too bad. What comes across is that the review I commented on the other day was pure P.R. -- someone wrote a press release, pulled some strings, and the "review" was published. The movie, while entertaining, didn't have a deep theme (or little theme at all) beyond "outstanding people break the rules". Which I can have some sympathy for. A few lines in the end grated on me rather strongly -- the old "reason versus emotion" false dichotomy -- but as I said, overall it was entertaining, pulling a lot of elements from the original S.T., with hints of things from other sci-fi fare like Stargate, Battlestar, other S.T. movies, and even J.J. Abrams' show "Alias". I actually like the new James T. Kirk better than the old, and the younger versions of the other characters were all quite plausible. So -- 3 stars, which is a good score from me.